In their book Wired for Speech, Clifford Nass and Scott Brave make an interesting point:
'Recording can have an enormous psychological impact on people. When people have a sense of being recorded, they are likely to say different things and process what is said differently than when they believe they are not being recorded. The lack of a record allows people to speak with a sense of informality and plausible deniability. Conversely, consider how much more careful, self-conscious and guarded people are when speaking "on the record" as opposed to "off the record".'
While the purpose of Nass and Brave's book was to describe their research on voice interfaces for electronic devices such as satellite navigation systems, there are implications in the context of learning technologies. The first and most obvious is whether we should be recording webinars. By doing so, are we unnecessarily impeding the natural flow of conversation? Do participants become inhibited by the fact that some unknown others might listen in to the recording some time in the future? Quite possibly.
This presents us with a difficulty because the ability to make recordings for the benefit of those unable to be present at the time represents a real advantage for webinars over the physical classroom. If we want the same easy flow of communication that can be obtained face-to-face when we're online, then we have to consider not pressing the record button. We have to rule out recording surreptitiously because this would be unethical and possibly illegal, but we may be able to achieve a happy compromise by limiting access to the recording to fellow students.
There is another implication of this reluctance to be recorded which might explain why it can be so difficult to get employees to contribute to forums and other types of social media in the workplace. Contributing a post, even just a comment, is like being recorded. Your words are captured digitally and stored for years to come for all sorts of third parties - real and imagined - to retrieve, read and interpret, favourably or otherwise. Many employees will ask whether this is worth the risk? Those of us who have poured out our souls to social media over many years with little in the way of negative consequences will believe they are over-estimating the danger, but we're not them, are we?
Thanks Clive, some good points raised on the psychological effects of recording.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that many people, including myself, are relatively happy to post (record) comments in public fora like Facebook etc. but are reluctant to so so within the boundaries of the organisation, suggests this is an issue related to the trust people have with the organisations they work for.
Trust is a multidimensional concept of course, but rather than suggesting a solution to the trust issue, maybe I can suggest a way around it. Perhaps that's a cop-out but hear me out!
Maybe there is a role here for the L&D professional as an extension of the "facilitator" role for webinars and social learning fora. Simply, L&D could "harvest" key comments and insights from the participant group and seed/share them more widely. This reduces the need for recording of webinars and can keep the actual social learning forum can be kept private. Participant comments could be anonymised if necessary, though I'd recommend that L&D still obtain the permission of the group to share them.
Perhaps not tackling the root cause of a bigger cultural issue, but perhaps a pragmatic one.
Cheers, Phil
Hi Clive, perhaps a pragmatic solution would be to enhance the role of the L&D "facilitator" of online spaces such as webinars and social learning, to that of a "harvester" and "sower" of individual and group comments/insights to the wider organisation. So no real need to hit the record button, but it does require a diligent and observant L&D professional. And probably needs the permission of the group participants to do it, even if the comments shared are anonymised.
ReplyDeleteThe wider organisational culture barrier here around recording is probably the wider and multidimensional issue of trust. Many of us are happy to allow our comments to be broadcasted in more public fora like Facebook, but not it seems within organisationally controlled spaces. Of course, what I've suggested doesn't tackle this issue at the root cause, but it may provide one way of moving forward whilst the OD specialists continue to wrestle with the trust issue.
Cheers, Phil